Freud and Co.

Tahunanui Beach in Nelson

It’s now Monday June 3, 2024. King’s Birthday! Kia ora!

Ww have been back from Taiwan for a few days now, and it has been very hard to adjust – to the cold, the different air, and the Chinese threats to Taiwan which have intensified lately.  There have been a number of other adjustments too – another wave of covid, both in Wellington and in Hawkes Bay.

It’s now Monday June 10.

Last week I went to the movie The Way, My Way, about an older Australian man who walks the Camino in Spain.  Although I have some issues with the documentary, it is glorious to see the Spanish countryside, and it’s well worth a look, if a tad soppy at the end.

The next day I saw Freud’s Last Session, a film about an encounter between Freud in London and an Oxford don, presumed to be C. S. Lewis, presumed to be based on a “true” encounter between the two at the very beginning of World War II. I think it was based on a play, and Antony Hopkins is (almost) always worth watching, however it was like Hollywood in the UK, and I found it pretty frustrating, especially as Hopkins was in great discomfort.  It had dramatic and scary displays of trench warfare in the First World War, but Lewis did not fight in that war. 

On Wednesday we drove to Hawkes Bay, having lunch at Woodville. I had looked up Waka Kotahi, the NZTA site, but there were several delays on SH2 between Dannevirke and Waipukerau, which had not been notified!

Although we knew that our daughter had been diagnosed with covid, she was displaying no symptoms, and we visited her new house twice on the Thursday, sitting outside and wearing masks, of course. We also gave her gifts we’d brought from Taiwan. We met her new House Manager and two other staff members. So, touch wood, we don’t get covid! It’s a relief that she has no symptoms; it’s the fourth time she’s been diagnosed with covid! JD has had a cold, but thought he was better for this trip, which we really wanted to make, seeing we hadn’t seen our daughter since the end of February and hadn’t met her new house manager.

The weather in Hawkes Bay was glorious – cold in the mornings, but with fine, warm and sunny days. On our last night we found Alessandro’s in Havelock North – a little hard to find, as so many places are, and it was off one of the main roads. I had thought from the website it was a rather casual place, but it was quite upmarket, and very busy. We had to sit at the bar at first – there was a 30 minute delay on being served. So we settled in to enjoy our drinks – prosecco for him, and a beautiful peach flavoured mocktail for me.  In many places here drinks are served in crystal glasses.

After a few minutes we were shown to a small table, and then we were served pizza to share.  It was so nice that we had affogato to finish – with Kahlua. There was chocolate sauce on the ice cream.  People on either side of us were served pasta meals, and they looked large and delicious, too.

The previous night we had dined at an old faithful – the Thirsty Whale, where we had whitebait fritters as an entrée, and finished with affogato – which they do beautifully.  It’s different everywhere!

During our stay we had coffee at the Albion: “hokey pokey lattés”. We had these with oat milk, and they were topped with hokey pokey. This was to remind us of Taiwan, but they were really sweet, although quite nice.

Home again to Wellington, and it is much colder, and rainy.  I turned on the heat pump before we got to Shannon, but again, alas, it was not early enough.

Today I went to see my first French Film Festival film, The President’s Wife, starring Catherine Deneuve. She is wonderful, of course, but she really just has to be herself. 

On a completely different note, I mourn the loss of the adverb. We are exhorted to “Run safe”, “Drive safe”, and so on. While I acknowledge that apostrophes can be tricky – surely an “-ly” on the end of a word isn’t difficult?

It’s now Sunday 16 June.

I have had some adventures: we flew to Nelson for a couple of days for my brother in law’s 70^th birthday.  It was a strange time, let me tell you.

We flew there at midday on Thursday, and had a smooth flight although it was quite cold there. JD’s brother met us at Nelson Airport, and we checked in at our motel before going up to his house in Orakei Street. His house has a beautiful view, but access is challenging, to say the least!  There’s a steep drive, and steps, which he hadn’t quite finished, on account of his being unwell. There’s no handrail.  When you get up the outside steps, then there’s a staircase inside the house, with a had rail partway up. 

So I got up and we stayed there for the next few hours, as others of his children and their families arrived.  We had ham sandwiches for lunch, and fish and chips for tea.  Then we went back to the motel.

Oh dear; I was very frustrated that we had not spent more money for a roomier motel with a quiet heat pump and a restaurant!  This unit had a Skope wall heater, which turned itself off and on and was so noisy that I turned it off after a while. This was an “accessible unit”, with a wet shower, but absolutely nowhere to put anything!  There was a clothes hanging unit with four hangers, and a low shelf to put one’s suitcase, with no luggage rack: if one needs an accessible shower, how can one bend down to reach into the suitcase?

In the bathroom there were no tissues, no hooks, and literally no space for anything: there was a basin, with minimal space around it. Where to put one’s sponge bag, then? Obviously I couldn’t leave it in the bathroom. I didn’t dare to put things on the bed since it was covered with a spotless white duvet cover (as is the style these days).

On the Friday it rained steadily, and I got up, showered, and walked about 10 minutes to a café where I had scrambled eggs and an oat latté (this time in a glass, not a really thick cup). I could only get a newspaper at the petrol station across the road from the motel – and this was a copy of the Press.

Then JD and I got a taxi to the Suter Gallery (always a treat), and walked to Trafalgar Street. We had lunch at a restaurant near the cathedral (salmon paté and spiced celery and a rather strange brioche) followed by a long black coffee. Then we went to the Provincial Museum. There was no exhibition upstairs, but the one downstairs was interesting, as always.

Then we got a taxi back to the motel where I had a rest before the birthday party which was due to start at 5 pm.

It actually became much warmer throughout the day, and I wore my red pleated Annah Stretton dress and a black lacy cardigan over it. It looked much better with the cardigan.  As it was raining more heavily, we got a taxi to the Styx, the party venue. But it was quite warm there, and I got very tired, so much so that we left quite early, after all that effort to get there. There was grazing platters, but when I checked there wasn’t much food, although when we left there seemed to be lots.  JD managed to spill his glass of prosecco over me and my handbag.  There was no birthday cake, and apart from the birthday boy, so speeches. But he did have all of his five children there, including his eldest son and his two daughters from Australia, and his second son and his wife and three lovely children from Auckland.  His eldest daughter and her son came from Paekākāriki, and his youngest daughter and son were there too. Nobody was dressed up much – I felt overdressed, whereas whenever I go to Australia to one of his sisters’ parties, I tend to feel underdressed. Anyway, it was very hot there, although we talked to one of our nephews about his grandfather’s part in the Second World War, and which beach he might have landed at on D-Day.  We picked Sword, although we don’t really know. Anyway, to my surprise and pleasure my nephew and I had listened to the same podcast about D-Day! 

It seemed a shame to leave early, but we did. The taxi managed to go the wrong way – what is it with these taxis?  I had given the address.  As it was so much warmer, we did not leave the heater on, and I slept more that night. JD’s brother was to pick us up the next morning, and take us to the famous Nelson Market with his youngest daughter – JD had promised to buy her something. Actually he had wanted to buy her something from the Suter Gallery gift shop, but it was very expensive, and I picked he could get something much cheaper  from the market. As I had quite a large outstanding credit card bill, I wanted him to be careful about his spending. I don’t wish to be mean!

The market was interesting. We met our nephew and his wife and two sons there. The sun strike made it really difficult to see – by the way, it was a gorgeous sunny day in Nelson, although still wet underfoot.  We had stopped in Trafalgar Street, where there were long queues outside the ATMs, although most stalls had Eftpos terminals.  There were two protests in Trafalgar Street – an Anti-Vax protest, and a Palestinian protest.

The market was not as good as I had remembered. There were vegetable stalls (small avocadoes at $2.50), herbals, French bakery stalls, lovely tote bags, a nice one selling beautiful felt bunny rabbits – I nearly bought one for my granddaughter to be but, although quite beautiful, they had whiskers!  Quite inappropriate.  I did get a nice glass hanging ornament; JD, of course, wanted to get another one for a granddaughter.  There were earrings, but there seemed to be no paua jewellery as there had the last time we had been here. There were lots of herbals; honey; cheeses; and a jewellery stall where JD bought our niece a locket (not a Paua one, but she did get to choose it).

After that effort, which included finding JD, I suggested we three have morning tea. Rather than sitting in the sitting area in the market, and buying a nice Danish pastry, JD wanted to go to one of the dingy cafés around the market. I compromised by stating that at least we would sit outside. We had oat milk lattes in large thick cups (ugh!) and large cheese scones.  This was probably just as well, since we were not to get lunch.

After wandering through the market some more, we walked to Trafalgar Street to the Paper Plus store, where I was able to buy a copy of The (formerly Dominion) Post. Then we went to the taxi stand in Hardy Street, where there were no taxis. After a while, I rang the taxi company, again wrestling with the (now dreaded) Automated Booking System.  So what part of Taxi Stand, Hardy St, near the cathedral, don’t you understand?  It was a battle, as always, but I discovered they do honour the Green (Mobility) Card in Nelson. I wished I had known earlier, as JD had left me to pay for each taxi from my carefully hoarded cash real money – needed for some of my cash-only activities.

We went back up to JD’s brother’s house, where we sat in the sun and admired his fiancé’s new granddaughter and waited till it was time to go to the Airport at about 3:45 pm. This seemed to be a general drop-in time with various people coming and going during the day.  I spoke to the fiancé’s daughter about the classics – we both shared a love of the Classics, so that was nice. We even shared the moving scene in Homer’s Iliad where Achilles is mourning the death of Patroclus, and he joins in grief with Priam mourning the death of his son Hector.

We had a short but rather bumpy flight back to Wellington, with a particularly bumpy landing. I hoped and prayed that the pilot would be able to land, and would not have to pull out and land somewhere else. The taxi driver that had brought us to the airport was there to meet us, and so we came home. Unfortunately I had forgotten to turn on the heat pump, which I did in the taxi.

That’s it for now. Slava Ukraini! Ngā mihi nui.